What is desirable for children of particular ages has long been a matter of debate. While few would agree that sitting three-year-olds at desks with pencils for a large part of the day is a sound and desirable practice, wouldn't it also be true that preventing children who are ready, capable and eager from progressing to the next stage is equally unsound and undesirable?
Independent schools have long prided themselves upon their care of the individual. Is individual need best met by increasingly prescriptive central diktat?
A large number of independent schools receive the early years grant for a proportion of their pupils and so are subject to Ofsted nursery inspection and are required to cover the Foundation Stage. At present, some schools are subject neither to regular Independent Schools Inspectorate (ISI) nor to Ofsted inspections, being neither grant recipients nor Independent Schools Council members. In time, all will be required to undergo regular inspection by ISI or Ofsted and this may help in the spread of good practice. In that sense I would welcome and support the extension of inspection procedures.
But independent schools are not required to follow the prescriptions of the national curriculum for older pupils. If we are going to require them to follow precisely the same curriculum as schools in the maintained sector, then the much-vaunted partnership with parents and the notion of parental choice is rendered meaningless.
Parents choose an independent school because it fits their philosophy and aspirations for their child - and for that they pay, as the educational system for which they have paid their taxes does not provide the choice they want. Of course there must be regulation and accountability to ensure children are being educated safely and competently, but if we are going to require uniformity of method and age-related levels of attainment and activity, then our only morally justifiable course of action is to pay from the public purse for the basic education in all independent schools.
